This invention relates to temperature controlled portable food carriers. More particularly, this invention relates to a new and improved controlled temperature food carrier wherein independent hot and cold control units may be freely interchanged depending upon desired use.
Portable carriers suitable for holding food at selected temperatures for extended periods of time find application in a wide variety of uses. Hot meal transportation to the elderly, fast food home delivery and individual usage for picnics and outing are just a few of the many useful and necessary applications. With social service home meal delivery programs on the rise, convenient and efficient meal or food carriers have taken on increasing importance. Similarly, while adequate containers or carriers for hot meal transportation have concerned those in the food delivery industry, the transportation of cold food has also become important.
Problems of economy and efficiency have arisen, however, in that one interested in meal transportation must purchase portable food carriers for heating purposes along with different carriers for keeping food cold. This necessitates the expensive acquisition and maintenance of many different food carriers. A further disadvantage of the prior art food carriers is that when the heating or cooling unit malfunctions, then the entire carrier must be discarded due to the fact that the temperature control units are integrated within the carrier.
Typical prior art food-carrying devices of the type hereinabove discussed are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,129,317; 3,387,114; 3,521,030; 3,714,394; 3,760,155 and 4,039 776. All of these prior art temperature-controlled food carriers exhibit the problems already mentioned.
Accordingly, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a controlled temperature food carrier which overcomes the deficiencies of the prior art.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a temperature controlled food carrier which can be interchangeably used for either heating food or cooling food.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a controlled temperature food carrier wherein the heating and cooling control units may be easily disengagable and interchangeable to allow the same carrier to be used as either a food warmer or food cooler.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a controlled temperature food carrier wherein the heating and cooling control units can be easily removed in order to economically facilitate replacement of a temperature control unit without having to discard the entire food or meal carrier.